EVERYTHING EVERYTHING + PRIMA QUEEN – CHALK, BRIGHTON 13.12.24
Earlier this year, I was given the opportunity to review one of my favourite bands of all-time, Everything Everything at the De La Warr Pavilion. (Review HERE).
As someone who’s been an active fan of the band’s one-of-a-kind blend of tight rhythmic complexities and unique conceptual style of songwriting, witnessing a performance of theirs was nothing short of staggering. As the Bexhill show was knee-deep in the middle of the tour supporting their latest album release ‘Mountainhead’, little did I expect to get the chance to see them twice in one year! A sell-out show at Brighton’s Chalk saw the talents of vocalist Jonathan Higgs, drummer Michael Spearman, guitarist Alex Robertshaw, percussionist Peter Sené and (filling in for Jeremy Pritchard) bassist Nathan Sudders charge through paths of angular indie rock with socially bent lyrical edges and falsettos abound.
‘Mountainhead’ was born to critical acclaim and fan adoration, with many citing it as a continuing return to form alongside its sister album, 2021’s ‘Raw Data Feel’, which, like ‘Mountainhead’ explores themes of artificial intelligence implemented in dystopian society… not too far away from our current climate, eh? Of course, other Everything Everything albums would get their fair share of live performance, such as 2015’s ‘Get To Heaven’ and 2017’s ‘A Fever Dream’.
Opening for Everything Everything across their UK winter tour is Prima Queen, a fresh indie rock band born out of songwriting duo Louise Macphail and Kristin McFadden. With the former hailing from Bristol and the latter originating from Chicago, joined by drummer Heledd Owen, the best friend team-up have enjoyed sparks of success from a slew of singles dating back to 2020 as well as their 2023 ‘Not My Baby’ EP receiving critical acclaim.
Their trio of guitars, drums and percussion are regimented in a line in front of the cloaked Everything Everything gear, ready for Prima Queen to assemble behind at 7:30pm. From the get-go of the set’s opening track ‘Fool’, the distinctive sound that makes up Prima Queen can be found through great heartland harmonies between Louise and Kristin, as well as a strong appreciation for the music of Boygenius, sonically. There’s a calm, yet adventurous flair to the band’s presence, not unlike the aforementioned Boygenius or HAIM.
The band take a moment to highlight the warm rapport they have received from Everything Everything fans across the tour before heading into the cut ‘Chew My Cheeks’. With Louise now taking lead vocal duties, this track is much more sinister compared to its predecessor, with some strong interweaving guitarwork and the lyric “you’re a masochistic game, I know it hurts, but I like the taste” ringing through my head as the song comes to a close.
The grittier and more fuzzed out ‘Ugly’ features a slower drum groove, with Heledd maintaining some stellar tom arrangements that give this song an incredible weight. The band then teased us with the unreleased ‘Oats’, which was, by far, a strong favourite of the set for me. A much more lyrically energetic track, this song features some slightly Wet Leg vibes from Kristin’s vocal delivery, but it’s the euphoric chorus and inclusion of cowbells and tambourines in the bridge that win me over! The repeating cries of “I ain’t gonna beg for your love” bring the song to a screeching climax and send the audience into applauding frenzies.
A much needed comedown from ‘Oats’, the track ‘Dylan’ features more dynamic flexibility, as well as some cool multi-phrase vocal arrangements in the back end of the song. After some capo adjustments, the band enter ‘Eclipse’, another highlight of the set, with an incredible progression and vocals from the fronting duo, not to mention the marvellously atmospheric distorted guitar lines from Louise. Before they close out the set, Prima Queen take a moment to highlight their merch, which features T-shirts and CDs of their EP that feature hand-drawn cover art!
The band bid us farewell on ‘The Prize’, the title track from their upcoming album, to be released next year. This song implements a head lyric of “You’re a diamond, you’re the dream, you’re a peach”, breathing messages of self-love and appreciation to the Everything Everything crowd, before they embark on a wonderful journey of sound that evokes the feeling of the end credits to an indie movie. The track soon climaxes to rapturous applause, leaving the crowd on a high as Prima Queen say goodbye and depart the stage with no time to waste. Boy, am I excited for what these guys have in store for 25th April 2025, where they will be headlining at Patterns in Brighton – Tickets HERE.
Prima Queen:
Louise Macphail – vocals, guitar
Kristin McFadden – bass
Heledd Owen– drums
Prima Queen setlist:
‘Fool’
‘Chew My Cheeks’
‘Ugly’
‘Oats’
‘Dylan’
‘Eclipse’
‘The Prize’
A final half hour of intermittent chatter among the audience took place as the stage was set for Everything Everything; an array of guitars placed stage right with a runner on standby, an assortment of keyboards and synth laid across the back of the stage, above which stood the ‘Mountainhead’ logo against a wall of webs. An opening backing track of rising electronics and synth textures signalled the walk-on of the Mancunian five-piece, giving brief introductory waves to the crowd before hitting us with the first song of the night: the cult-like ‘The Mad Stone’.
A teaser single to ‘Mountainhead’, this track is a powerful opener to the performance with its grouped vocals between Jonathan, Alex and Peter before a key change triggers the chorus’ pummelling bass tone. Carried by polyrhythmic pipe tones played by Peter, Jonathan continues to reiterate the post-chorus’ blisteringly fast mantra involving “a screen that showed a picture of a man who stood there looking at a picture of a man who stood there looking at a picture of a picture of a man on a screen…’”.
Where ‘The Mad Stone’ acts as a somewhat prelude, the real opening cut, and the first track on ‘Mountainhead’, ‘Wild Guess’ bleeds itself into the show with a lengthy introduction that makes used of sampled vocalisations from Peter’s keyboards and Alex implementing a fuzzed-out guitar riff that sounds like something from Radiohead’s ‘Hail To The Thief’. Also, the chorus’ beautiful and serene melody stands as one of the best in an Everything Everything song, Jonathan’s falsettos being a mainstay of the band’s sound.
The synthetic four-on-the-floor beats of ‘Pizza Boy’ from the 2021 ‘Raw Data Feel’ album start luring the crowd into vocal ecstasy, from the warped Prince references in the second verse to the proclamations of having a Coke or a Pepsi in the chorus. I must say, having heard this track unreleased at the Brighton Dome a couple years ago, it’s remarkable being part of the trek that this song has undertaken in a live setting, where floods of Chalk attendees sing that fizzy drink-championing chorus back to the band.
One of the biggest groovers from their 2020 ‘Re-Animator’ release, ‘Arch Enemy’ integrates some fuzzy synth textures that carry the pulse of the song through to fruition in its big title lyric refrains. ‘The End Of The Contender’ has proven to be quite the grower in the Everything Everything catalogue for me, while not on the same level as other singles ‘The Mad Stone’ or ‘Cold Reactor’, it still acts as one of the most archetypal songs from the last two albums: lyrically abstract, but emotionally potent. The somewhat darker ‘Metroland Is Burning’ gives a distinctive portrait of the dystopia that Everything Everything likes to paint on their records, with an expansive synth and guitar arrangement and mentions of Kevin, an artificial intelligence character that appears frequently across ‘Raw Data Feel’.
Following a quick praise to Nathan Sudders for filling in for original bassist Jeremy Pritchard due to illness, we approach the sinister, but groovy ‘Can’t Do’ from ‘A Fever Dream’. Despite not being a particular favourite of mine, Everything Everything still performs it with such finesse that it’s impossible for me to not move to the song’s pulsing and fluttering rhythms. It’s at this point that I’m stunned at just how Jonathan is able to keep the stamina in his voice, not just for this one show, but for an entire tour thus far?! The man has the throat of a god with the amount of falsetto and rapid-fire lyrical deliveries he pushes out for 90 minutes straight!
I will always make the time for this next track, ‘Kemosabe’; one of the earliest songs the band perform in this show, its chirping synth lines and disjointed chorus structure still sends me into indie rapture after 11 years of listening to this song, not to mention the effortless key changes from section to section. A surprising addition to the setlist, ‘Teletype’, the opening track from ‘Raw Data Feel’ makes an appearance through its stuttering synth arrangements and sparse guitar lines from Alex that both mimic and counterpoint Peter’s synths. Possibly the biggest grower of the band’s, as I now regard it as among my top ten songs of theirs, ‘Jennifer’ is one of the band’s most devastatingly songs lyrically, depicting a girl losing herself to social dystopia underneath layers of slide guitar and wailing synths in the verses and call-and-response vocals in the chorus.
The atmospheric introduction to ‘Canary’ makes for a calming cooldown in the halfway point of the performance, armed with soft, but pounding electronic kick drums, topped with pinches of scattering synths flying across the stereo fields. This track is dynamically versatile, with a great progression from start to finish, thanks to its electrifying chorus which spaces out the title lyric “Caa-naaa-ry, under the gro-u-u-und!”.
Another grower from ‘Mountainhead’ for me, ‘Enter The Mirror’ features some skipping, filtered electronic tones that lets the song bloom into beauty. Watching this song in a more intimate setting after hearing it live at the De La Warr Pavilion earlier this year made me watch a shift from a simple sea of bobbing heads now mutated into waving hands and pointing fingers, proving the song’s staying power. The arpeggiated synth introduction to ‘Night Of The Long Knives’ makes for one of the greatest openings to an Everything Everything song, full stop. Jonathan further pushes the audience to let their vocals ring out on the chorus, before waves of Alex’s delaying guitar permeates its way into the song’s last leg.
It’s no doubt that ‘Cough Cough’ is one of Everything Everything’s biggest triumphs in my eyes, having referred to it as the apogee of the band’s discography in my last review of theirs… safe to say that statement still stands. From its erratic introduction of tongue-tied vocals and rhythmically vigorous backbone to a glistening and shimmering chorus passage, this, one of my first exposures to the band, is a highly significant song in the group’s career that continues to receive love and adoration from fans.
The penultimate song of the main set, ‘Re-Animator’s closing cut ‘Violent Sun’ interpolates a fast motorik rhythm and a staunch sense of uplifting energy that brings us to some of the biggest audience interactions for the entire performance. Then, we reach ‘Distant Past’. Still standing as a lifelong favourite song for me, this track’s indie-funk rhythms, laced with occasional ‘Star Trek’ samples and vocally-warped title lyric iterations is a magnificent way to end the main set, despite a brief lack of audience participation here (the sole reason being that this song is incredibly hard to sing if you are at all familiar with the work of Everything Everything).
During the encore to the performance, the audience were so keen for more of the band that they had enough love to give to the technicians once they did the littlest thing (i.e. change the lead microphone, tune the stage guitars, etc). The band promptly returned for a three-song encore that sent the entire crowd into a frenzy, starting with ‘Cold Reactor’, which received the biggest audience singalong of the entire night. An assortment of blipping vocal clips and an immense guitar solo from Alex created some truly exciting moments in the performance for me, and evoked memories of the Bexhill show quite staunchly.
The massive fan favourite ‘Spring / Sun / Winter / Dread’ from ‘Get To Heaven’ proved to be such a winner with the crowd that they sang the first verse of the song by themselves with no additional aid from Jonathan. An exceptional move from both the audience, and from Jonathan: the audience because of their incredible dedication to their favourite band, but Jonathan because he’s able to rest his voice for a spell before opening the stupidly speedy verses of the closing track, ‘No Reptiles’. This track proceeds to build and build into a gorgeously triumphant and euphoric climax of swarming synth arpeggios and vocal falsettos that no other song can reach, acting a glorious send-off for the show.
It’s been an absolute thrill to catch Everything Everything again in such a short space of time; they continue to prove their value as a socially-aware band that dedicate their sound to the virtues of angular, yet approachable indie rock with an exciting sound palate and hauntingly dynamic vocal performances. And, with one date remaining on their tour for the year (14th December at Oxford’s O2 Academy), I wish Everything Everything the best of luck as they continue to climb a Mountainhead of their own.
Everything Everything:
Jonathan Higgs – lead vocals, rhythm guitar
Nathan Sudders (filling in for Jeremy Pritchard) – bass guitar
Michael Spearman – drums, backing vocals
Alex Robertshaw – lead guitar, backing vocals
Peter Sené – keyboards & percussion, backing vocals
Everything Everything setlist:
‘The Mad Stone’ (from 2024 ‘Mountainhead’ album)
‘Wild Guess’ (from 2024 ‘Mountainhead’ album)
‘Pizza Boy’ (from 2021 ‘Raw Data Feel’ album)
‘Arch Enemy’ (from 2020 ‘Re-Animator’ album)
‘The End Of The Contender’ (from 2024 ‘Mountainhead’ album)
‘Metroland Is Burning’ (from 2021 ‘Raw Data Feel’ album)
‘Can’t Do’ (from 2017 ‘A Fever Dream’ album)
‘Kemosabe’ (from 2013 ‘Arc’ album)
‘Jennifer’ (from 2021 ‘Raw Data Feel’ album)
‘Canary’ (from 2024 ‘Mountainhead’ album)
‘Enter The Mirror’ (from 2024 ‘Mountainhead’ album)
‘Night Of The Long Knives’ (from 2017 ‘A Fever Dream’ album)
‘Cough Cough’ (from 2013 ‘Arc’ album)
‘Violent Sun’ (from 2020 ‘Re-Animator’ album)
‘Distant Past’ (from 2015 ‘Get To Heaven’ album)
(encore)
‘Cold Reactor’ (from 2024 ‘Mountainhead’ album)
‘Spring / Sun / Winter / Dread’ (from 2015 ‘Get To Heaven’ album)
‘No Reptiles’ (from 2015 ‘Get To Heaven’ album)
